The Angel Read online

  “I locked both doors, or at least I tried to. They’re not great locks. Maybe the front-door lock popped open.”

  “Where’s your key?”

  “In my backpack in the ruin. There’s a spare— I’ll get it.” She pulled open a utility closet off the kitchen and grabbed a key from a hook above the washer. “There’s no sign anyone broke in here. Maybe my note just blew under the refrigerator.”

  He shrugged. “We could check.”

  She gave him a cool look. “You don’t believe I wrote a note, do you?”

  “You’ve just been through a trauma, Keira. Telling yourself you wrote a note describing your location helped you get through it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I wrote the note with my favorite drawing pencil. I sketched a little shamrock on the bottom for fun.”

  He was undeterred. “In your head, you did.”

  “I also locked both doors.”

  He stood back from the side door. “All right. First things first. You’re done in. Why don’t I cook you up something? Toast, eggs—”

  “We can get to the pub before it closes. I want lights, people.” She took a breath. “And warm rhubarb crumble. 136

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  All last night, all day today…I kept thinking about warm rhubarb crumble.”

  “Then let’s go see if Eddie O’Shea has some.”

  As they headed out to the lane, Simon asked if she wanted him to drive her to the pub, but she shook her head. She preferred walking. It was just after sunset on the long June day, the night not yet fully dark. And it was so quiet, she thought. There was barely any wind, and she could hear only the distant bleating of sheep far up in the hills, nothing from the sheep and cows in the pens close by the lane. Keira wasn’t fooled by his silence as he walked beside her. “I know you must have a lot of questions,” she said.

  “They can wait.”

  When they reached the pub, he settled at a table with three local men chatting among themselves. They seemed surprised, but when he called for a round of drinks, they warmed right up to him.

  Keira eased onto a high stool at the bar. Eddie O’Shea shook his head at her. “You got yourself into a fix, didn’t you?”

  “I did, indeed,” she said. “Please tell me you have rhubarb crumble, Eddie.”

  “Fresh this afternoon.”

  “Perfect. And a shot of Irish whiskey.You pick the brand.”

  He splashed whiskey in a glass and set it in front of her.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  “I had a mishap in an old ruin up in the hills above my cottage.” She drank some of her whiskey. It burned all the way down, but she welcomed it, nonetheless. “I’m sorry if I worried anyone.”

  “You’re safe. That’s what matters.”

  Behind her, Simon adopted a remarkably natural Irish accent and made an inflammatory comment about Irish

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  137 weather. The men roared, and the good-natured fight was on. He could get away with anything, Keira decided. He was charming and convivial, a hale-and-hearty type who fit right in with the Irishmen. They all sat with their arms crossed on their chests, legs stretched out, comfortable with each other as they laughed and argued. If it’d been a group of Wall Street investment bankers he had to drink with, Keira had the feeling Simon would have fit in with them, too. He wasn’t a chameleon so much as a man at ease with himself.

  Eddie placed a plate of steaming crumble on the bar and grinned at her. “Wouldn’t have been near as good if one of us’d come to your rescue, now, would it?”

  She felt herself blush and tried to blame the whiskey. “I appreciate Simon’s help, but I was about to get out of there on my own when he turned up.”

  “Ha. So you say.”

  She dipped her spoon into melting vanilla ice cream mixed with the sweet-sour rhubarb crumble and felt her ex­

  haustion, her hunger. Her head spun with images of the past twenty-four hours. She saw Eddie’s gaze fix on her scraped knuckles, his frown as he returned to his work.

  “Do you know anyone around here who owns a black dog?” she asked.

  He had his back to her as he got beer glasses down from a shelf. “What kind of black dog?”

  “I don’t know. A dog…that’s black.”

  “Short hair, long hair, big dog, little dog?”

  “Maybe like a black lab, but not quite that big. A mutt.”

  He turned back to her and started filling the glasses with beer from a tap. “You’re describing half the dogs I shoo out of here every morning and every night.”

  “What about creepy, scary, mean black dogs?”

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  “That would be my mother-in-law’s dog.” His eyes sparked with humor as he set a full glass on a tray. “Or maybe it’s my mother-in-law herself.”

  One of the men at the table hooted at him. “You don’t have a mother-in-law, you lying snake.”

  Eddie nodded to the man, also blue-eyed, sandy-haired and wiry. “That, my dear Keira, is my worthless brother Patrick.”

  She’d met Aidan O’Shea, the third O’Shea brother, briefly upon her arrival on the Beara Peninsula—he owned the cottage she’d rented as well as the pasture where she’d come upon the ruin. She wondered if any of them would know anything about a bloody, dead sheep. But she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to think about the sheep right now.

  “Deep down, Eddie,” she said, taking another bite of crumble, “you believe in fairies, don’t you?”

  Instead of answering, he moved off to the table with the tray of beers. But as he unloaded them, he gave Keira a sideways glower, which told her that he’d at least heard the question.

  As she finished her rhubarb crumble and concentrated on her whiskey, Simon joined her at the bar, remaining on his feet. “I ran into a man outside on the picnic table earlier,” he said, addressing Eddie. “Older guy in a wool vest and wellies—right off an Irish postcard. Smoking a cigarette. Did you see him?”

  Eddie slipped back behind the bar and grabbed a cleaning cloth. “An old man, you say?”

  “He was there one minute and off into the mist the next.”

  “Is that so, now?” Eddie mopped up a tiny spill. “I must have missed him.”

  Keira finished her whiskey, remembering her strange encounter two nights ago. It had to be the same man.

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  139 Simon stood back from the bar. “That’s the way it’s going to be, is it?”

  Eddie shrugged. “That’s the way.”

  Keira started to speak, but Simon had pulled out his wallet, obviously preparing to pay for the drinks and her crumble. Eddie put up a hand and shook his head. “On the house.”

  “Thank you,” Keira mumbled, her head spinning now with fatigue, sugar and alcohol. As she eased off the stool, it occurred to her she didn’t know where Simon planned to spend the night. “We can go. I’m sure you’ll want to get back to Cork or Kenmare or wherever you’re staying—”

  “I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

  The men at the table all looked at the two Americans—

  expectant, eager for a sparring match, their eyes twinkling with amusement. Keira figured they’d side with Simon. She couldn’t have picked a more appealing rescuer, nor could she blame him and his new Irish friends if they thought her flighty, eccentric and reckless for having ended up trapped in an Irish ruin for the past twenty-four hours.

  “Let’s go,” Simon said quietly.

  Eddie slung his cleaning cloth over his shoulder. “Stay safe, Keira,” he said.

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  When she stepped outside, she shivered and tightened her sweater around her in a chilly wind kicking up off the Kenmare. “There’s something about this place…” She smelled the lavender in the baskets hanging on the lamp­

  posts that lined the quiet street. “It’s like a part of my soul is here. I can’t explain it.”

&n
bsp; “You don’t have to,” Simon said next to her. She abandoned the thought. She wasn’t even sure where it had come from—the whiskey, probably. “If I hadn’t told 140

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  my uncle I’d call this morning, no one would have been the wiser—”

  “You have people who care about you enough to worry. Don’t be too hard on yourself, Keira. You’re only human.”

  Simon grinned back at her. “Well. I think you’re only human. Could be you’re a fairy princess after all.”

  “A shape-shifter,” she said, starting up the street toward the lane. “At any moment, I might just change into a lizard or a snake—”

  “Not a snake. Not while we’re in Ireland.”

  She realized she was as comfortable with him as the men at the pub had been. He rescued people from dire situations, but she wouldn’t say he was chivalrous. That suited her; natural charm she could handle—any forced gallantry would just make her feel hemmed in and needy.

  “Cold?” he asked her.

  “Not really.”

  “Keira…I’m staying with you tonight. Word of your ordeal is going to spread, and given what you do for a living, and how damn pretty you are, who knows what kind of nutcase it’ll bring to your doorstep.”

  “Probably none at all.”

  “Well,” he said, leaning in closer to her, “you can’t always count on your magic and fairies, now, can you?”

  “A little brute strength does come in handy on occasion.”

  He smiled. “And charm.”

  “Telling me I’m too stupid to live isn’t charming.”

  “Honesty has its place. You’re worn out, Keira, and you need to rest. But I want to know what happened up at that ruin. You were up there because of the story that old woman in Boston told you, weren’t you?”

  She nodded. “It’s a wonderful story, Simon. It has mischief, magic, fairies, Irish brothers.” She shivered in

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  141 the wind as they turned onto the lane. “It’s not a dark, tragic story.”

  “Do people around here know it?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to find out. I asked Colm Dermott about it. He was at the reception in Boston, too. He’s an expert in Irish folklore, but he’s never heard the story or any recognizable version of it.”

  Simon slung a big arm over her shoulders. “I’d love to hear this magical story of yours.”

  “There’s no way I can tell it the way Patsy does. I’ve only known her a few weeks, but my mother and my uncle grew up a couple doors down from her in South Boston. She’s a natural storyteller.”

  “How does it start?”

  “With three Irish brothers—a farmer, a hermit monk and a ne’er-do-well.”

  Keira went on from there, telling the story in truncated form as she and Simon continued along the dark, quiet lane. When she finished, he dropped his arm from her shoulder. “You love this stuff, don’t you?”

  “I do. Normally I don’t care about the literal truth of a story. That’s not the point. But this one…” She looked up at the sprinkle of stars against the blackening sky. “I thought it’d be fun to see if I could find the hermit monk’s hut—to see what happened there on the night of the summer solstice.”

  “So you think the fairies toppled that ruin onto your head?”

  “I don’t know.” But she thought a moment, remembered the eerie whisper of her name and shook her head. “No. I do know. Whether they were there or not isn’t for me to say, but—it wasn’t fairies that caused the cave-in, Simon.”

  Keira could feel his eyes on her and took note of his sudden reserve. There was none of his boisterous charm 142

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  now. He plucked a pink blossom from the massive rosebush that tumbled over the ancient wall in front of her cottage. “Keira…”

  “I ducked into the ruin to get away from a dog,” she said.

  “There was this voice. This whisper.”

  He eased the rose blossom into her hair, then ran one finger along her jaw. “Tell me.”

  She slowed her pace and told him about last night—about finding the old stone hut, running into the dog, hearing the voice just before the cave-in.

  And the angel. Keira told him about that, too. As she walked up her cottage driveway, she was aware of Simon watching her, studying her, and she turned to him.

  “You’re thinking what I saw was just a hunk of rock that I mistook for the stone angel in the story. And the dog—that it was an ordinary sheepdog, not some big, menacing dog—”

  She paused, cold now in the wind. “And the whisper was the evening breeze.”

  “You’re imaginative, and you’ve experienced a trauma. You’re also exhausted and spinning on sugar and alcohol.”

  “But did I get it right about what you’re thinking?”

  He approached her, snatched the flower just as it fell from behind her ear. “I’m not that good with flowers. I probably should have checked this one for bugs, huh?”

  “Simon…”

  “You had a close call out here.”

  “I’ve had close calls at home.”

  “Let’s see how things look in the morning. I don’t like the sheep’s blood and entrails. Did you hear anything that in retrospect—”

  “Was a sheep in the throes of death? No. I didn’t.”

  He nodded without comment.

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  143 “Maybe what happened had nothing to do with me or Patsy’s story.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters are the facts.” She gave a mock shudder and tried to laugh. “Now I sound like my uncle.”

  “At least you don’t look like him.”

  “We have the same eyes,” she said.

  “The same color, maybe. Ah, Keira, Keira,” Simon said in his exaggerated, fake Irish accent. “You’re gutsy. I’ll say that for you.”

  She couldn’t help but smile as she unlocked the side door and slipped into her cottage. She looked back at him.

  “You can come in. I’m not going to make you sleep in your car, and I can tell you’re not going anywhere. You can have my bed.” She waved a hand toward the living room. “I’ll sleep out here on the couch.”

  Simon entered the kitchen, locking the door behind him. “No, you won’t.”

  “You deserve a good night’s sleep after charging to my rescue, and I’ll fit on the couch better than you would. I’m beat, Simon. Nothing’s going to keep me awake. I just want to curl up under a stack of blankets—”

  “I can sleep next to you in your bed without getting personal.” He winked, giving her the slightest smile. “I’m disciplined.”

  She stared at him. “You’re serious!”

  “You should have thought of the consequences before you took off into the hills.”

  “I did think of them.And you’ve no room to talk.You went looking for me by yourself.You’re unfamiliar with the area.”

  “Rocks, grass, sheep. What else is there to know?”

  “There’s a mean bull—”

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  He laughed. “I always make allowances for mean bulls. Plus, I had Owen waiting to hear from me, and I had a working cell phone—and I was prepared.”

  “You had a rope and a flashlight. That’s not prepared.”

  “I had a jackknife, too.”

  He was irreverent, confident but not quite cocky—a man most anyone would find hard to stay mad at for long. Keira appreciated his straightforward opinion of her escapade. She hated being coddled. But she wasn’t ready to give in.

  “If you’re in my bed with me, I’ll never get any sleep.”

  She winced at how her words sounded and, suddenly feeling hot, ran into the bedroom, whisked an extra blanket off the foot of the bed, then headed back into the living room. Simon, merrily whistling some Irish tune, retreated to the bathroom.

  She dropped onto the couch and pulle
d the blanket up over her front. She didn’t have the energy to go back for a pillow. She really did need a bed.

  “This is insane,” she muttered, dragging the blanket with her back into the bedroom.

  Skipping her usual nightgown, she changed into sweat­

  pants and a T-shirt and climbed into the bed, pulling the duvet up to her chin. As a volunteer for Fast Rescue, Simon would be accustomed to rough conditions. A too-short couch wouldn’t be a problem for him.

  She heard the shower.

  No. Don’t picture him naked…

  She just wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep and forget the past twenty-four hours until morning. With a good night’s sleep, she’d be rested enough to climb back up the dirt track, over the fences and through the steep pasture in order to check out the ruin in daylight. But she was still wide awake when the shower stopped,

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  145 and Simon walked into the bedroom wearing a Guinness T-shirt and shorts. He smelled not of her citrus bath gel but the plain soap that had come with the cottage. She noticed the thick muscles in his legs and arms and thought of his hand on her hip while she’d wormed her way into the hut’s entrance to check on the stone angel.

  He yanked back the duvet on the opposite side of the bed and climbed in. “Cozy,” he said, pulling the duvet over him. “I figure if you didn’t really want me here, you’d have stretched out in the middle and not left any room.”

  “I’d never get any sleep on the couch.” She scooted another two inches toward the edge of the bed. “Pretend there’s an invisible electric fence between us.”

  He adjusted his pillow. “Will do.”

  “Black dogs often appear in stories as supernatural shape-shifters.”

  “You might not want to think about that right now.”

  “Their purpose can be for good or for evil,” she said.

  “Why don’t you picture that painting of yours I bid on in Boston?”